We’re glad the ACLU has offered this handy dandy video telling high schoolers how to set up a gay-straight alliance step-by-step. They even make sure to tell GSA-minded students to keep documentation, dates and names in case they have to come in and start kicking legal butt to help convince your school to allow a GSA to form. That’s good advice, especially since all schools aren’t so open to the idea.

Until the ACLU has the sense not to busy themselves defending the “rights” of the KKK to antagonize Holocaust survivors, the “rights” of the Westboro Baptists to antagonize gays, and the “rights” of corporate bigwigs to threaten union organizers, ima pass on signing up for the ACLU.

Legal principles are not divorced from legal outcomes.

Nov 13, 2011 at 5:07 pm · @Reply ·

Kevin

@the crustybastard: Because the Constitution doesn’t apply to people we don’t like, amirite?

Since you can’t attack my argument, you attack my spelling and supposed lack of credentials to speak on legal issues? Awesome!

That’s called an “ad hominem,” and it’s a logical fallacy. As you evidently are unfamiliar with these things, it means your “argument” isn’t actually an argument, and you’re just talking shit. Moreover, what I said to Kevin has nothing to do with “childish namecalling [sic].” Kevin chose to misrepresent my point with an unnecessary element of smugness. If he chooses to engage in discourse by acting like a punk, I don’t owe him civility.

Anyway, next time the WBC or KKK makes news, don’t forget to pop by and remind everyone how their “protests” are made possible by your generous donations.

I dunno, I kinda like living in a country where we are ALL protected by the Constitution, regardless of our views. I mean, did you realize that the law that protects GSAs and makes it impossible for public schools to shut them down – the Equal Access Act – was actually proposed by Orrin Hatch and passed to allow Christian clubs to meet? But if the Christians get their clubs, then so do the gay kids.

So I say good for the ACLU: protect everyone’s right to freedom of speech (& assembly)!

Nov 14, 2011 at 7:15 pm · @Reply ·

B

No. 2 · the crustybastard wrote, “Until the ACLU has the sense not to busy themselves defending the “rights” of the KKK to antagonize Holocaust survivors …”

The ACLU won, with the judge saying, “It is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear … The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy of even hateful doctrines … is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country.”

Whether it was because of being defended by a Jewish lawyer, what the judge said, or some other unrelated reason such as lack of funding, the Nazis canceled their parade.

So, while the ACLU defended our right to free speech, it really did not do the Nazis any favors in the process. If anything, it helped humiliate them. So did the judge.